A Temporary Condition
by Macaview2
Summary: Steve is sleep deprived gets hurt in a fight with his dad. He's been having a rough time with Dally but seeks his help anyway. Fluffy. Shippy.


**Content warnings:** Child abuse, drinking, canon-typical triggering content.

 **A/N:** I wrote this on heavy pain meds and I feel like Steve was OOC so please don't kill me, I mean he had like 15 lines so IDK but still go easy on me. Feedback is appreciated. I know this is a rare-pair but they're my favs so why not?

Slam.

The cold Tulsa night hit me like a smack. The screen door hit my drunk father in the face, he stepped back rubbing his nose, giving me enough time to get out of grabbing reach. My old man was bad enough when he wasn't boozing up. He was always irritable and mean but alcohol added a level of unpredictability I particularly despised.

"You little bastard. You're in for it this time, you no good bastard! This is the last time you pour vinegar in my Jack Daniels bottle! Come here and take it like a man!"

'Bastard' was one of those words my father pioneered and used uncontrollably, especially towards me. It was supposed to cast doubt he was my real father and let me tell you I couldn't care either way. I hope my real dad is still out there, boozing it up in Gatlinburg and missing his only son. This man who gave me a bruise once a week for 17 years was no father of mine. Mr. Curtis was the closest thing to a dad I really had and he got hit by a train. That wasn't too surprising. I have shit luck.

"Catch me first, asshole." I spat on the ground at his feet and leapt off the porch, landing awkwardly on one of my ankles. To hell with it. Escape first. Worry later.

I patted around for my keys in the pocket of my black leather jacket. Nothing. Empty. They were on my desk. And the Thunderbird remained parked, gleaming under the streetlight. A promise of safety. There was no way in hell I was going back in the house for my keys. I'd never get out with my dad in a mood like this. My ankle smarted but I had no choice but to hotfoot it. Where? The Curtis' were on the other side of the slums, it was drunk-thirty for Two-Bit and Johnny was probably in the same sort of situation. That's the problem with having friends in the same socioeconomic situation as you, they can't really help out.

Buck's. My only hope. Maybe Dal wasn't around. We hadn't talked in a week, which wouldn't have been much before but he was my boyfriend or something like that. We'd been taking it slow since we were 15 and by slow I mean real fucking slow. Old lady on her way to church slow. We'd kiss once or twice, cuddle in jail and pretend we didn't know each other later. But after he broke up with Sylvia we really became a pair. I'd hang around Buck's and beat his ass at pool, I'd sleep in his bed most nights. That was until I saw him chatting up a greasy girl at the Dingo. Then we had a blow out. But that was Friday, this was Thursday.

Dad stumbled off the porch and I booked it the best I could, Cuban heels slamming the asphalt with rhythm. A stabbing searing pain radiating up my leg like fire. I turned around at the end of the block just to see my old man slip and fall, hitting the ground with a thud and a grunt. Drunks, am I right?

I slowed down a little after that, limping past the stoops and derelict cars towards the edge of town. No one was out. An eerie fog always seemed to come over Tulsa at midnight on a work night. Several lights were still on in places where mother's nursed their babies or working folk got off their shifts. One or two houses oozed loud jazz and one or two more radiated drunk yelling. I shuffled past those particularly quickly.

By the time I got to Buck's my ankle could hardly hold my weight. I limped up the stairs and threw myself through the door. It was empty. It was the middle night on a work day with nothing to celebrate. The hardwood as waxed, the chairs were up, Buck stood at the bar with a half-empty glass of beer. He looked up, half-drunk honey colored eyes scanning me. Buck was the kinda guy I trusted, a good old boy who had no agenda and liked drinking and horses. And he liked Hank Williams. The mark of a pure soul.

"Hey, if it isn't my favorite redneck. Lasso any bad guys lately?" I mumbled, leaning against the wall. It had been a running joke that Buck was Oklahoma's No. 1 crime-fighting cowboy since he got drunk and tracked a car jacket down on horseback. He was larger than life.

"Nah, nah. None of that. Whatcha doin' out after curfew? If you're going up for a late night hook up, your loverboy went to sleep an hour ago." He scratched the golden beard forming in his chin and pending over to peel the label off a bootle of Ancient Age.

"Bed? Before one? He's gotta be sick or something." I reached down to rub my ankle, secretly hoping he was. The only time Dal wasn't mean was when he was sick. Then he was just quiet. It was an eerie change but at least he wouldn't have the energy to yell at me if he was sick.

"Nah. He's just depressed," The cowboy slid the empty bottle in the trash and continued to pick at the label. "Sylvia came back and promptly cheated on him with Tim."

A smile curled across my lips at the thought of that dirty broad teaching him a lesson. Karma was a bitch. Not quite as much of a bitch as Sylvia. That girl was trouble. She'd been my enemy since second grade when I pulled her pigtail and she kicked me in the crotch. We'd gotten off on the wrong foot and never tried to patch things over. After the incident with Johnny I had nothing but contempt for her. She got her kicks taking advantage of boys and beating me in drag races. Despite her many negotiable attributes, she was never predictable and and always exciting. That's why she earned the nickname Jenny Dean. A greaser girl of the highest degree.

I limped to the bottom of the stairs and did the most obnoxious thing I could thing to do.

"HEY STELLA!"

Silence.

"HEY STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLA!"

I heard footsteps and then a door slam. Dal loved that movie but hated that scene. God knows why. Said it reminded him of his childhood.

"There are people trying tah sleep, yah shithead." He complained in his thick Bronx accent, face popping from behind the wall, sky blue eyes staring at me in the low-light. God he was gorgeous. Dal was the strangest looking human being on earth but in a good way. He looked like a cat. And he had platinum hair that stuck out every which way. People were split 50/50 on if he was the hot or hideous.

"What? People like you? You probably weren't sleeping anyway. Too busy stewing about your girl. Or were you stewing about me, baby? Your man?" I grinned up at him as big as I could grin.

"Nah, nah." He took a steep closer down me, taking his damn time. "Just thinking about you, baby. Always you."

"Get down here and carry me up the damn stairs and maybe I'll forgive you, maybe." I took a step closer, landing awkwardly on my ankle and crumpling to the ground, catching myself on the stair case. My eyes stung but I clung to my dignity, smacking my hand against the stairs angrily. It throbbed. It stabbed. Dal rushed to me, bare feet pitter-pattering against the pine.

For all his cold toughness Dal couldn't help giving a shit about everyone. He was there every time Johnny got jumped, he was always dragging Two-Bit out of ditches when he was drunk. One time I saw him nursing one of Ponyboy's bloody noses, ringed finger holding a rag under his nose just as throughly as Darry. And me, if someone so much as looked at me funny he'd pound them. There was something so nice about Dal caring since he made a life off not caring about anything, it was like it really meant something.

"You ain't looking so hot, baby." He mumbled as sweet as I ever heard him, pulling my arm around his shoulder and his arm around my waist. My head lulled and dark spots appeared in my eyesight like mold.

"It's a-it's a temporary condition," I mumbled, quoting some Paul Newman movie I'd seen with Ponyboy and Sodapop. I set my head against his shoulder. God, how I miss that shoulder. "ain't slept in two days. 'N I think I broke my ankle trying to get away from my old man. Just need some sleep is all. Sure you and Buck'd love to play nurse."

Buck chortled and put away the bottle of booze. He'd been quiet during our little reunion. He kept out of Dal's business but was always there when you needed him. And he liked me.

"Nah. I'll dress it and let you sleep but don't expect me to bring you breakfast in bed. If you're looking for a housewife go hang around Soda." He started up the stairs and I hobbled with him, leaning heavily on him.

"I ain't trying to make no one my wife, neither are you Dal. Neither is Sylvia or Tim or Buck." I whispered, barely clinging to consciousness. Walking there had been the worst idea of my life, the pain was so bad I thought I was going to pass out.

Dal sighed and drug me up the stairs and down the hall without much issue, depositing me on the bed. I flopped back onto the dirty quilt, feeling the familiar threadbare blankets under my tired body. The smell of smoke and Dal's sweat. Comforting. I would have fallen asleep if it hadn't been for Dal loudly rummaging through the cabinet in the adjoining bathroom.

Next thing I knew he pulled off my shoes and then my one-size-too-small jeans.

"I'm not in the mood you randy bastard." I slurred, forcing my eyes open.

"Shattup." He light a Kool and went to wrapping my severely swollen ankle with an ace bandage, making sure to get the right angle with doctor's precision. Dal had been hurt everywhere so he knew about every injury a person could have. He even caught tuberculosis hiding out in a warehouse in New York once.

"No gymnastics or leaping out of a moving car or any of that shit you do, you dig?" He looked at me and I nodded with a bleary smile, lifting one eyebrow.

He crawled into bed next to me, pushing his muscular frame against my side and puffing away on his cigarette in the dim lamp Iggy. The rooms at Buck's always seemed to be dark no matter what time it was. I figured it was the nicotine stain on the windows and the ugly drapes. Dally's room wasn't like the others. I can see it now, yellowed walls and posters of the Alamo and Jimmy Dean. Books that Dally didn't read on the dresser, ceiling fan clicking away. And the bed. A full sized bed so there was barely room for two muscular boys. I think Dal liked having to huddle but he never said it.

I must have blacked out for a couple seconds because I felt him tuck the blankets around my neck and his fingers run through my greasy hair. Was this what he did when I was asleep?

"I love ya you little shit." He murmured quietly.

A smile spread across my sore bruised face.

"Love you too, Dal."


End file.
